


I Wanna Get Better

by TheCityLightShow



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drift Bond, Drift Sequences, Drift Side Effects, Eventual Fluff, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Hermann is Done With Your Shit Precursors, Hermann's POV, M/M, Mako Mori Lives, Pacific Rim: Uprising Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-04-27 10:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14423370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCityLightShow/pseuds/TheCityLightShow
Summary: I wish he was here,Newt thinks, a little hysterically, and then hates himself for thinking it. No, he doesn’t, because he wouldn’t wish this mess on anyone.The first thing Hermann Gottleib did when it had all sunk in, was cry.The second thing was visiting Newt’s apartment. He found his own letters – opened and cried on – and he foundAlice. Alice… a thing, not a her, and god, Newton had wanted them tomeet, he’d wanted Hermann toknow. He could’ve done so much more if he’d known.A post-Uprising fix-it.Title taken from "I Wanna Get Better" by the Bleachers, that I was listening to when I thought of this fic.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a new fandom for me! I haven't moved on from Marvel, but I love these nerds too much to ignore a plot bunny when it strikes, and I adore Pacific Rim regardless. This is a fix-it - I'm mostly doing this from memory of the films and a newly discovered fandom I never found before, and I'm then ignoring the rest of it. There will be spoilers, but there will also be an element "well that was stupid so I'm ignoring that".
> 
> I'm also looking for con-crit on my German (google translate will only take me so far), and my characterisation, because I have literally never written these guys before.

 

_I didn't know I was lonely 'til I saw your face_

_I wanna get better, better, better, better,_

_I wanna get better_

_I didn't know I was broken 'til I wanted to change_

_I wanna get better, better, better, better,_

_I wanna get better_

 

"I Wanna Get Better" - The Bleachers

  

 

_Newton Geiszler stares at the interface he’s attempting to code._

_He’s coding a goddamn interface for this thing, like he’s just pratting about with designing a shitty little game, and not the thing that’s going to give him the control he needs to end the world. He keeps doing it, because it’s keeping his mind quiet, and when his fingers are busy on the tablet he doesn’t have that itch, that whisper, that he needs to Drift. God, all he’d wanted that first time post sealing the breach was to get out of his head for a little while._

_Learn a little more._

_The breach was sealed, he **should** have been safe from the hive mind. He’d thought he **was**. So, he’d done it again. _

_And again._

_And just when it had been that little too late… he noticed._

I wish he was here _, Newt thinks, a little hysterically, and then hates himself for thinking it. No, he doesn’t, because he wouldn’t wish this mess on anyone._

_He glances up at the photo that sits on his countertop. He wonders if Hermann’s copy of it is as pristine as his is, or if it’s as worn as Newt thought his ought to be… he dares not touch his. He knows what happens when he tries to reply to Hermann’s letters, and he **wants to** , he so desperately wants to, but he can never keep the Precursors anger at bay long enough. _

_He can’t lose that photo. Not when he’s already successfully lost himself._

_Not when he’s lost Hermann._

 

\---

 

The first thing Hermann Gottleib did when it had all sunk in, was cry. Gut-wrenching, heart-breaking sobs, for Mako and Suresh, for everyone who fell, for- for _Newt_ , because at some point he’d reached out for help before being forced to draw away and Hermann had been too goddamn hurt to pay any attention to it. He’d known that hurt was selfish, but he’d never released just how so... He’d thought it his karma, at first, for how he’d been before- back when he’d had his heart broken without knowing it and pushed away his penpal, his best friend, perhaps the lo-

The second thing he did, once he’d showered and slept, and once he’d had a large argument with Rangers Lambert, Beckett and Pentecost, with a not-as-dead-as-we’d-feared Mako Mori, with Tendo Choi, newly returned, and with Liwen Shao-. The second thing to do was visit Newt’s apartment. He found his own letters – opened and cried on, written on and half replied to with _I’m sorry_ and nonsense phrases, half Mandarin and a smattering of German, and something Hermann was refusing to read or he was going to break again so quickly – and he found that he’d been living off pot noodles and alcohol, and then he’d found _Alice_.

Alice… a thing, not a her, and god, Newton had wanted them to _meet_ , he’d wanted Hermann to _know_. He could’ve done so much more if he’d known.

The third thing, once he’d copied the data from all of Newt’s personal computers himself and hidden his tracks, was to call Shao. She packed up everything from the apartment while Hermann returned to the Shatterdome. He navigated the bureaucratic avenues and then _exhausted them_ , doing everything in his power to get Newt’s life transferred to his decision – in the end, it came down this this; if he could not bring Newton Geiszler back to himself, it did not matter that he could prove that Newt had been, well, possessed. Whatever was left would take the fall, locked away for the rest of its life, underground and chained up.

 

Hermann couldn’t let that happen.

They’ve given him six months.

The Shatterdome, somehow, seems to be on his side.

Mako certainly was, telling him when he came to see her that she, too, should have known something was wrong. That Newton Geiszler was never meant to grow up, and the sudden bout of maturity should’ve been a clue. Raleigh would always stand with Mako, as would Pentecost – _Jake_ – and Jake was still so immature, if somehow wiser than when Hermann had last met the former Marshall’s son, and his carefree jokes and get-this-over-with attitude grated on something in Hermann he was refusing to address.

Herc Hansen, presumed lost to the PPDC, returned, simply to give his opinion and get yet more people off Hermann’s back. He stayed to assist Mako. He’d leave again, no doubt – the very building seemed to cause him pain when he thought no one was looking – but for now, he stayed. Raleigh was glad to see him.

 

The fourth thing was take up permanent residence on the other side of the glass of the room they’d moved Newt to. Hermann had a revolving door of visitors, some to help him and some to listen to his stories of the last twenty years of his life. Partially, he realised, they wanted to see Newt as he had been, as something a lot lot closer to human, and Hermann hoped he was doing the man’s former mania justice. The newest rangers were happy to help him shift equipment as he needed it, and to hear the stories of the insane things the first iteration of the PPDC had tried and done. Mako still wasn’t out of the hospital, and she might never be the same once she was, and Tendo had called by all of once, to envelope Hermann in an unexpected hug and wish him the best of luck _getting his boy back._ Jake seemed to have decided that he was going to personally make sure that Hermann remembered to eat. Lambert often came to find Jake down there, too.

 

Once, just once, Lambert comes looking for _him_ , not Jake.

“What did he do, to earn your loyalty like this?” he asks.

Hermann has to think about that… it’s not that there are no words, it’s that there’s too many. “He filled a hole I didn’t know I had.” Hermann settles on eventually. Lambert nods, like that makes total sense. “Second chances are important.” Hermann tells him, looking away from the window, from Newt, to find Lambert glancing away at the door.

“They are…” he agrees at last. “Thank you, Dr Gottlieb.” He says, and takes his leave. Hermann isn’t quite sure what question he _actually_ answered, but Lambert seems to have got whatever he came looking for.

 

The fifth thing, on the fourth day, is to go inside.

 

Newt looks up immediately, and the smile that blooms – well, Hermann can see it now. There’s nothing of Newt behind it.

“Guten Morgen, Newton.” Hermann greets him – he slips into German for the comfort of it, and part of him is glad that despite their shared roots and their history, that’s one bit he managed not to share with Newt. Whatever there is behind those bright blue eyes, greeting him back, is not Newt. Newt’s eyes are green.

“Guten Morgen, lieber Doktor!” He calls, and he sounds so like Newt – but the smirk is vicious in a way Newt’s never was. “Come to play, have you?”

“Ich bin gekommen, mein versprechen zu halten.” _I have come to keep my promise_ , Hermann tells him – and the smile flickers, disappearing for a moment behind anger, and fear, and _hope_. Hermann hides his smile, sitting down on a chair placed against the wall specifically for him, for this purpose; he pulls out a book.

“What- what are you doing? Are you just _reading_?” Newt’s voice is slipping into many, and Hermann can’t hide his shiver, but he doesn’t look up from the book. He’s not focused on the words of it. It’s an old notebook of Newton’s, one he’d seen on Newton’s desk nearly every day when they’d been in the Hong Kong Shatterdome. It’s personal, but as he doesn’t intend to actually _read it_ \- he flicks the page. It’s merely serving a purpose. “You cannot ignore us!”

“I think you’ll find I can,” and Hermann’s voice is only so level, so curt, because he doesn’t look up – there’s a tiny doodle on the corner of the page, and he cannot read the writing around it, but he can see clearly that it’s him. He resists the urge to trace his fingers over it. “I’m not here for you.” He glances up then, and the Precursors study him through Newt’s eyes, head cocked to one side.

“He’s not _here_ ,” they sneer, and Hermann smiles though he doesn’t truly feel it in that moment.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

 

\---

  
He repeats his visits three times a day for the next week. Observation is his greatest asset right now, and it’s clear – there’s some of Newt in there. Enough of him still there that the Precursors are _scared_. On the seventh day of vigil, he has several bits of equipment brought in, an EEG among them, and to his distress but understanding, Newt is sedated. When the scans are done, Newt is back in his chair, and the results are loading up, while Hermann waits for the images to crop up on screen for his viewing, he gets the shock of his life.

“H-Herm?”

Hermann turns so fast he drops his cane. Newt’s paler than he’s been all week, and there’s bruises blossoming under his wrists, visible through his tattoos in a way Hermann hasn’t seen before, and his head is lolled to one side like he can’t hold it up. His eyes are green. “Newton.” It’s barely a breath.

“Hey man, my Herm dude- god I’m so fucking _sorry_ -“ he manages, and groans rolling his head to the other shoulder and muttering something that sounds like _fuck off let me have this_. Hermann stumbles forward, catching himself before he can fall to his knees. He gets treated to a smile. “You’re too good to me dude.” He says. “Don’t deserve it.” His breathing is becoming laboured. “ _Fuck-_ “ he bites out, and there’s nothing Hermann can do or say before he’s crying out- and then his eyes are blue.

 

The machines’ readings are safe, though what they show worries Hermann to his core.

The machines themselves took the brunt of the Precursors anger.

 

“He’s still in there?” Lambert asks, and glancing between Hermann, Raleigh, Jake and Liwen, who is looking over the scans.

“He’s fighting…” Liwen whispers. “You can see,” she glances at Lambert, and gestures with a dainty finger – though the nail lacquer is still cracked – “where the two signatures overlap and push each other back.” She squints at it, a quick bit of manipulation that Hermann can only track because it’s the same thing he’s done. “We’d need to scan again to know, but… Newt may only have weeks left.” She says softly. “It’s a miracle he’s alive at all.”

“I don’t know whether or not to be glad he lived through that…” Raleigh murmurs. He’d rather not be here, Hermann knows. He’d rather be at Mako’s side, but she’s sending him forth to do her job, to keep her updated where it cannot be done by tablet. Raleigh might be glad for something to do, might feel terribly guilty for just being too goddamned far away when everything went World Ending Catastrophe again, but he’ll never say it aloud. Not to anyone but Mako.

Hermann isn’t sure what it says about him that he knows what that’s like.

 

“Uh, Doc?” Jake asks just as they’re all making to leave, the plan of action simply being _rescue Newton Geiszler_ , “there’s a third signature here.” 

“That’s impossible,” Liwen protests, and Hermann is inclined to join her before he realises; it’s not. Hermann nudges her aside to see the reading himself. Sure enough, in the midst of Newt's signature, where the Precursors have yet to reach, is a small signature that belongs to neither.

Perhaps the nightmares of the last decade were not his own.

“I- I may just have a solution.” Hermann tells them, unable to help his smile at the implication that Newt is effectively fighting to keep the Precursors away from him.

“Dr Gottlieb?”

“When I drifted with the Kaiju, I did so with Newt. That third signature is mine... a ghost drift. I was not affected by the Precursors, which suggests that it happened when Newt drifted solo. His presence defended me – and I believe in that instance, mine protected him.” Hermann took a deep breath. “The Precursors are afraid of my prolonged presence around Newt, that is abundantly clear. What if this is why?”

“What are you proposing, Hermann?” Jake asked, “drifting with him?”

“Precisely.”

“Absolutely not!” Lambert's protest was immediate, “Doc, we cannot risk compromising you too.”

“Without Newton, I have nothing left to offer the PPDC,” Hermann replied. “You have all you need and more in Ms Shao. If this is what will save him, then- well, try and stop me.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter goes out to twixremix on tumblr, because her words regards the first chapter of this on tumblr were so kind that I was grinning for days. Also an honourable mention for Sarah1281 because that is the longest, kindest comment I've ever had and I want to frame it. 
> 
> Sorry that this chapter is an angsty one...

 

 

_Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should._

 

Ian Malcolm - Jurassic Park

 

 

Hermann idly wonders what happened to the young girl Stacker Pentecost had once handed to him and Newt and told them to entertain her for the afternoon. They’d gone to the aquarium, he remembers. She’d been so small back then, and he and Newt – god, they’d still been in the all-out-war section of their collaboration, back in their early 20s like they had all the time in the world. They should have. God, they should have, they should have talked about that disastrous first meeting, should have worked _together_ together instead of just beside each other, and they should have been able to take what was hinted at in the drift and run with it. There should have been lectures tours and lazy mornings, bickering and coffee, touches and ki-

Fuck.

 _Can’t change the past_ , Hermann thought; _but you can learn from it._

Now, Mako and Jake are comparing scars, and Raleigh doesn’t say much, just sits to Mako’s other side and smiles as she jokes and ribs her baby brother – Hermann and Newt had never been tasked with taking _him_ to the aquarium, and not one of them will ever dare voice the question of _why_. What matters now is that Jake is as much his father as he needs to be, and simultaneously is his own person in every other way that matters.

Newt is going to love arguing with Jake.

Hermann blinks himself back into the conversation as Tendo joins them, greeted happily, and he throws an arm around Hermann’s shoulders as he sinks into the chair. He’s back for a few days, another passing trip, and Hermann hopes he’ll find a way to stay. It might have been ten years, but the LOCCENT had never been the same without him. Tendo gives Raleigh a sloppy salute.

“It’s good to see you,” he nods at Mako and Raleigh, and there’s smiles in return. “So how’s action plan Romeo November Golf going?”

“That’s a shit code name.” Jake complains, not for the first time.

“That would be because I didn’t make it up,” Tendo pointed out, “I would’ve gone with something he’d appreciate, you know? Like action plan de-kaijufy, or something.” There was laughter, though it faded fast, twinned with reluctant smiles.

“It’s the slowest progress we’ve ever made.” Herc admitted. “We don’t have enough understanding of what damage the Precursors were able to do. What needs to be undone.”

“That’s the most important part for you, Hermann,” Mako tells him. “The more we know about what happened to him, the easier it will be. You can’t get blindsided while you’re in the drift.”

“Can’t chase the r.a.b.i.t., do you mean?” he asks wryly – he knows full well what she means and the entire table knows it. He might not have been a Jaeger pilot, but he’s been around them for almost half his life. “I am aware.”

“I would hope you are.” She murmurs, reaching across to squeeze his hand briefly, before turning to have a quite discussion with her brother and Raleigh.

“I didn’t realise you two managed to get your heads out of your asses.” Herc tells Hermann softly. There’s pain behind the smile – of course, they’d not seen one another since they’d cleared them all out of the Shatterdome a mere two weeks after that fateful day – and while it’s a statement, his tone goes up at the end like a question. Herc Hansen was not a man who should have been allowed to leave on his own. Hermann has to swallow before he can speak.

“We didn’t.”

Herc nods, an _ah_ on his lips that he doesn’t verbalize. He doesn’t apologize either, doesn’t ask further. There’s no response to either of those things.

“You know who we really need right now?” Hermann sighs, rubbing his eyes to stave off the on-coming headache. Herc raises an eyebrow at him. “Hannibal Chau. He had more research on the kaiju than anyone who isn’t Newton.”

“Didn’t he get eaten by baby Otachi?” Tendo asks; to Hermann’s surprise, it’s Jake who answers.

“Yeah, but it didn’t kill him.” Silence reigns, and Jake looks up into it from the icecream he’s stuffing his face with. “What?”

“Hannibal Chau is still alive?”

“Nah, he got turfed out of Tokyo and couldn’t build the same name in Cali. Ended up trading kaiju research for the high life, and then trading that for survival. As far as I know,” he grins, and there’s a shadow that reveals his false humour, “it didn’t work.”

“Where _is_ that research?” Raleigh asks. Jake frowned.

“Ask small-y,” he says eventually. “She was concerned with research, I was concerned with root beer.” He shrugs shoulder. “Never expected to be leading a frontier.”

 _No one expected there would be another,_ no one says.

 

Amara Namani was more than happy for the excuse to take Scrapper and pick up the remains of all her work. She’d traded for any research she could get her hands on, not just Jaeger-tech, and some of Hannibal Chau’s valuable notebooks had fallen into her hands. Not written by the man himself, but with the same mark Stacker had once sent Newton out to search for.

“It’s not much, but it’s something.” She said, handing it over. Viktoriya and Jinhai are waiting for her in the doorway, but she still stays a moment. “I- I hope Dr Geiszler gets to read them.” Is what she decides on, and then she turns and flees with more dignity than the action should have. Hermann isn’t given the chance to thank her, but that might’ve been the point.

There’s a mention of Newton towards the end – a mention of his drifting, and the hive mind, and how he never should’ve drifted alone.

He never should’ve drifted alone.

_Unscientific aside: Hermann, if you’re listening to this, well, I’m either alive and I’ve proven what I’ve just done works — in which case, ha! I won — or I’m dead, and I’d like you to know this is all your fault. It really is. You drove me to this. In which case, ha! I also won…  sort of._

_It’s all your fault, it really is._

_You drove me to this._  

Hermann lets his head fall to the desk with a groan, not caring that the chalk dust and wet ink is going to stain his face. He should have _known_ , he should have known that Newton was not going to be content with once, or twice. He should have- he should have- god he should have _been there_.

He loads up the files he stole from Newton’s computer, and lets the ask for a password blink in front of him again. He’s not sure what he’s doing when he reaches over to type, but it accepts it.

 

_you won_

 

Hermann really needs to not throw up right now.

 

The data unfurls before him, audio files and crude diagrams, code that’s been done by brute force, and drift record after drift record. He ignores the little hovering _638_ by the drift records, and opens up the most recent audio file, only a few minutes long. There’s a long stretch of silence at the start, and Hermann wonders if it’s just a glitch, when Newton speaks.

 _“So this was a colossal fuck up. I- Hermann, I’m so goddamn sorry.”_ There’s a sound like he’s licking his lips, and a deep sigh. _“The Precursors don’t understand… emotion, or connecting. They are all, and all are one, and there’s no conflicting when everyone is you? But you’re not me and you’d never be me and that’s- that’s all the very best parts of you, the parts that are nowhere near me… Currently every little bit of me that’s still here are the bits that are closest to you. I was meant to be safe from the hive mind, but failing that- well, Herm, at least you are. If anyone ever tries to work out why I did this, you tell them I just fucked up. It’s- shit I still never made you watch Jurassic Park!! That’s- you watch that. I disappointed Jeff Goldblum. Scientists who were so concerned with if they could, they… they never stopped to think if they should. I just wanted to **know** Hermann. I just wanted to understand, maybe find something to help you round off the predictive model. Done or not, it still would have been cool. The breach was closed. Is closed. Gah- fuck. Hermann, I-“_

The file ended.

Hermann didn’t realise how tightly he was clutching the desk until he looks down and sees how white his knuckles are. He can’t bring himself to let go, and he looks up then, through the one-way glass into the room that holds what’s left of Newton Geiszler. The shirt is torn from all it has suffered, the waistcoat hanging off. The suit pants are worn and dirty, and his wrists are bruised and bleeding. His hair looks… better. It’s grown a little. It’s greasy, but Newton’s always was towards the end of a long week. He’s smiling blankly, head tipped back and humming to himself. His eyes are still blue.

 

Optimally, Hermann realises, he would have a year in which to drift with Newt every couple of days, for mere minutes at a time, fixing him a little bit by little bit. It would be the safest option for both of them; Hermann less vulnerable himself, Newt less likely to be lost under the strain of the extra neural load.  

Realistically, Hermann has weeks before he loses the battle before he’s had chance to really fight it. Hermann might have months, might be able to fight for more time, but Newt has _weeks_.

 

“So that settles it? The neural load will be too vast.” Jake sounds oddly disappointed, for someone who had never met the real Newton Geiszler.

They’re all stood along the banister of the rebuilt LOCCENT, overseeing the reinstallation of the computer systems. Tendo and Herc are on the floor, but the rest of them are leaning on or over the railings, discussing what they need to do.

“Not if we impose a time limit!” Hermann insists – and while he’s right, it’s by the skin of his teeth.

“And something of a refractory period.” Tendo points out without glancing away from the paperwork that he and Herc are studying. He’s almost apologetic.

“Dr Gottleib,” Herc begans to ask, looking up at them, “are you a hundred percent sure of what you’re about to do? That’s it’s necessary? That there’s a decent chance it might work?”

“Yes.” _No._

“Then that’s all I need to hear,” he says, glancing at Mako, who nods her agreement. Raleigh and Jake look a little troubled, and Hermann realises their concern.

“This is nothing like piloting a Jaeger solo.” Hermann promises, because it’s _not_ ; it’s quite possibly going to be worse. Jake relaxes. Raleigh does not. “Ranger Becket?” Hermann prompts, and there’s a flicker of a smile.

“We should get planning.” He says, and whatever still worries him is clearly more personal than professional. “We need as many people as we can spare to observe, from behind the glass-“ he has to raise his voice a little to cloud out Hermann’s involuntary protest, “and to be on hand should this go wrong.”

“It is _vital_ that Newt knows I am going to drift with him.” Hermann told them.

Lambert frowned, and spoke for the first time in the conversation from his end of the railing, beyond Jake; he’d never known Newton, known that when it can to the decision of _do we or don’t we_ there was little he could bring to the table. “You can’t seriously be worried about consent in a situation like this.”

“I don’t know,” Jake mused, hanging further over the bannister and twisting to look back at him. “After all he’s been made to do without his consent, don’t you think he deserves this?”

“Is it really consent if you’re not going to let him say no?” Lambert pointed out, and Jake smirked, answer clearly on the tip of his tongue; Hermann interrupted them before they could get side-tracked.

“Gentlemen, this is not the time for a philosophical debate, though the answer to your questions are yes and no respectively. This is not about consent, regrettably; this about making sure Newt’s consciousness does not immediately attack another intrusion.”

“Would it? Given he’s effectively defending a matching signature.” Jake asked. Raleigh stepped back from his place at the railing to look Hermann in the eye.

“How well did you drift before?” he asked, and no one had ever dared asked Hermann about it – no one had asked _either_ of them, just accepting it, accepting its initial consequences as just another part of life. “It will make all the difference.” Hermann doesn’t know how to answer, because that’s- their exceptionally strong drift, and a ghost drift that has lasted until ten years later, ten years spent apart no less, is _personal_. The entire group is waiting for his answer and pretending they’re not.

“On the basis of the drift, there should be no issue with Newton's consciousness.” His voice is a lot calmer than he feels.

 

The moment it’s realised what they’re setting up in his room, Newton starts fighting the Precursors. It’s not immediately evident, because the change from arrogant goading that _it will never work_ into shocked, fearful _what the hell are you doing_ seems like a natural progression. It’s only when they finally let Hermann come in that it’s made known that Newton has been the one doing most of the yelling for the last fifteen minutes.

“Herm- Hermann what the _fuck_?” He demands, wincing at what Hermann suspects is a renewed onslaught by the Precursors to box him back up again. “Why- _why_?” His voice cracks, and there’s something so odd about the way the blue fades out to green with the break and flares up again once he’s had to drop Hermann’s gaze.

“It’s the best way.” Hermann says. Newton knows what Hermann is going to do, Hermann is certain, and he knows that there’s no way to talk him out of it. There’s a quip somewhere on the tip of Newton’s tongue, but the Precursors bite it back for him. Hermann turns away, because he’s not going to make himself watch Newton fade away when he’s already listened to the first few years of Newt’s fight over the last week. That was enough. This was all enough, more than enough and Hermann is _done_.

“Doc?” Amara asks, from where she’s finished helping set up the makeshift con-pod tech. “You ready?” She’s watching him with worry, and Mako is the mirror of it over her shoulder – for a second seeing Amara is like seeing a twisted double of the child Mako had been, but no. She’s got regrettably harder edges. Hermann smiles even as his stomach is turning to lead. Amara smiles in return, hers as fake as his, and gestures for him to take a seat.

Hermann allows Mako to fix the headset on properly, and she doesn’t speak. She’s only just back on her feet, out of the wheelchair for a matter of days when really, she should’ve been in it for at least another week – he’d pulled the same shit post-Sydney, so he was refusing to comment lest she throw it back in his face. Not that she ever _would_ , but Hermann had had so much thrown back in his face in the last few months alone that he couldn’t face it. When she finishes, she presses a kiss to his forehead. “Don’t make me lose you too.” She tells him, like she’s commenting on the weather, and Hermann makes an effort to take a breath and reply.

“I won’t.” he tells her.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is, accidentally, about 1k longer than the other two chapters, but it is what it is and I don't have the heart to break it up, or ruin it by trying to stretch it into two. This is either an anomaly, or setting a new prescident for chapter length. I haven't decided which yet. 
> 
> Looking for con crit on how the drift scenes work. I had no idea how to write one going in, and I'm still not sure if I do?

 

 

_A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago, everybody **knew** the Earth was the centre of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody **knew** the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet._

_Imagine, what you’ll know tomorrow._

Agent K – Men In Black

 

 

Yanked out of himself roughly and thrown into a vacuum, Hermann tumbles into a war of two minds of which neither is his own. Drifting without something to control is all-consuming as there’s no outlet for the excessive neural input, Hermann realised that before; but he hadn’t realised just _how_ so it was. The load loops and loops, building with each repetition, until something else has to override the rest before the entire system of interlinking minds gives out.

_Numbers do not lie. Politics, poetry, promises, these are lies. Numbers are the closest we get to the handwriting of god._ Hermann’s own voice echoes in his ears, jarring to say the least, and then he sees something that is distinctly not a human memory – tall and looming and blue, puppets and masters and _mayhem_ – and he can’t help but think _God had forsaken us long ago_.

A series of blue-flooded memory, a younger Newt with clear arms, eagerly writing a letter Hermann already knows what it says;

Flesh stitched together by those infernal nanites, and the blue- _No Kaiju entrails over my side of the room, you know the rules! Every bloody day! It's incessant!_

A child and fish tanks, a movie night interrupted, instruments and windows and a breeze that has no business blowing,

A swarm, decimation, a fog thick with chemicals and ash and _so much blue_ Hermann feels as if he’s choking on it;

_But don’t you see!_ The same younger Newt is grinning at someone Hermann will never know,

_If this is what we learn today, what will we know tomorrow?_

A maths textbook, a new cane, the Mark-1 Jaegers, 2 Jaegers- 4 jaegers left.

Bolts and blue, ink and blue;

pencil scritches and chalk dust;

Blood shot eyes and;

Broken promises.

Not strong enough-

Never enough-

Too much-

_Hey! Guess who's back, you one-eyed bitch?_

Newt stands in the centre of his own mind for a moment, a flicker of a memory and a raised, shaking hand. There’s nerves in his voice and defiance in the set of his shoulders, and Hermann settles.

They’re nowhere and everywhere, and Hermann steps forward freely to catch Newton when he staggers. He doesn’t ask, and he isn’t confused, but there are tears in his eyes when he asks; “why would you promise her that, Herm?” It stalls Hermann for a moment, and he can’t answer until Newton is back on his feet, shaky but standing.

“She needed to hear it.” Hermann admits. He’d rather lose himself than live through losing Newt for good; it’s not a promise he knows how to keep without Newton around. Newt laughs mirthlessly, and clearly has something to say, but then Knifehead – or maybe Strikethorn – is lurching out of a memory to what Hermann defines as _left_ , and they’re dislodged from the small moment of peace Newton had fought for.

Something in Hermann, dragging and dragged by Newton through memories both shared and separate and _foreign_ , is more alive than he has been in years. The world around them is awash in an alien blue, but Newt’s eyes are incredibly green.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Newt tells him, but he swallows and hates it; he sounds detached, like he had when he refused to help Hermann with the kaiju-based fuel. It’s him, resigned. Regretful. They’re sequestered in a memory stood in the bay of the Shatterdome. It’s a night nearly fifteen years ago, Hermann recalls. They’d almost come to a truce.

“I shouldn’t be anywhere you aren’t.” Hermann counteracts. Newt rolls his eyes, a hint of a smile, and it’s like they’re bickering again.

The kaiju – and really Hermann will never look close enough to identify it, it could be any given the third presence that’s linked up – roars somewhere behind them, impossibly within the compound, and to the crackle of electricity, _an EMP_ , no _a lightning strike in Bavaria,_ no _it’s_ ;

Newt launches them both sideways into another shared memory before they shatter, and for a moment they’re free-falling.

_“You’re- you’re going?”_

_“Well, yeah? Shao Industries is a hell of an opportunity dude.”_

_“What about the lecture tour? The labs they’ve offered us?” Us in general?_

_Newt shrugs, and_

Hermann turns, to find Newt watching his former self in horror.

“I didn’t want to go.” He whispers. “I don’t want to go.”

“Newton, you’re not going anywhere.” Hermann tells him, and Newton flinches. The memory fades around them, and Hermann fights not to examine what replaces it – there’s no sense of time in the drift, and doesn’t know how much he has _left_. “We will fix this.”

“You’re very good at breaking promises, Hermann.” Newt says it casually, though his eyes are scrunched up, his hands are fisting in his hair though Hermann can’t recall him raising them and he’s _shaking_. It’s Hermann’s turn to flinch.

_I promise you Newton, no matter what you look like, who you are, or what you’re like in person, I’m not giving up on this collaboration of minds. Friendship, if you will. It would be too great a loss to me. I promise, it won’t change a thing_.

“I’m also very good at making mistakes.” Hermann tells him. “I’m not about to make another.” Newton looks up at him, and there’s a smirk to war with the pain, and it’s disconcerting in the worst of ways because this- this is _all_ Newton, bared for him to see.

It’s funny how vulnerable one is in one’s own mind.

“We wasted so much time.” Newton whispers, and when Hermann steps closer he doesn’t back away. “There’s so _much,_ Herm. I don’t know how- don’t know _why_ -”

“Newton, Newt, you- fortune favours the brave, you told me.” Hermann tells him, edging closer, “and you are so brave. You just need to keep fighting.” _For me_.

“I- I don’t know if I can, Hermann.” Newton whispers, and just before Hermann can reach him again something that is only half stitched together and oozing blue is between them, quaking and powerful, _hell hath no fury like a kaiju scorned-_

  

Hermann wakes up with blood leaking sluggishly from his nose, a cracking headache, and more worried faces than he ever wants to see in his life crowded into his vision. “I’m fine- I’m fine.” He insists, though he rather feels like crying.

_You’re very good at breaking promises, Hermann._

He can’t look at Mako.

“-Doc?” Jake and Raleigh are helping him to his feet, and Hermann hates that he has to lean on Raleigh to his left, but until someone hands him back his cane there’s no way he’s going to keep himself upright. “What happened?” Jake asks, probably not for the first time. Hermann can only shake his head. _How could I explain this?_ he thinks, _how on earth can you say the words ‘well at least I know he’s fighting but we both colossally fucked up twenty years ago and somehow that’s half of what landed us in this mess’ and not sound crazy?_  

“Hermann?” Mako asks softly, and Hermann has to look at her then.

“How long was I-“ _out, gone, connected, lost?_

“Just over ten minutes. We couldn’t risk it any longer.” Hermann groans, and the room is slowly emptying now, him urged along with them. He glances back – Newt’s unconscious and slumped against his shackles. Blood stains his top lip. “What happened?” she asks, when it’s just him and her and Raleigh. Someone turns into the corridor, but stalls at the sight of them, and doesn’t come closer. Hermann can’t help but look at Mako and Raleigh, at what they’ve overcome and been through, to be propping each other and him up in this moment.

“He’s- fighting.” Hermann pauses, swallows. Wishes it weren’t true. “He doesn’t know for how long.”

Mako nods, eyes dry, and squeezes Hermann’s hand.

 

At the base of it, the drift hadn’t worked.

Progress, perhaps – there was both more of Newt and more of _Hermann_ on the next scan when they managed to take it, twelve hours later than optimal, but that progress could easily be undone in the time it took for everyone to let Hermann try it again.

He didn’t need to heal, he needed _Newton_.

 

He wasn’t officially on house arrest, but whenever he left there was always someone to occupy his time, ask him questions, invade his thoughts.

Sneaking out of his own room at 3am, Hermann wonders if this is anything like Newt felt the first time he drifted. Though Hermann is probably having to do decidedly more sneaking and less building – the equipment is all there, he just has to get to it.

Three days, it’s been three days since the drift and Newt can still fight the Precursors off for longer, but it’s mere minutes, and the Precursors are fighting hard to keep him. Progress is progress, but Hermann feels like he’s watching it come undone before his very eyes.

It might take more drifts than they have time for if they wait for Hermann to be 100% again. If he can drift again in such quick succession it might only take two. It might only take one.

If only They’d let him sleep.

He makes it down to the labs to find that somebody else is there, despite the late hour.

“Amara.” He sighs, caught, and she looks up. She startles to see him, but relaxes when there’s no immediate anger. “What are you doing down here?”

She considers her answer for her moment, and then she shrugs. “Seeing if there’s a different way to help.” Hermann can’t help the flicker of a smile. “Shao is on her way… she agrees that you can’t afford to wait. I heard them arguing about it.” Hermann nods, and smiles. “Wait until she gets here before you do something stupid?”

“I would never-“ he begins to protest, a lie with every syllable because not only would he, he was about to, and Amara merely raises an eyebrow at him. _Kids_ , Hermann sighs to himself. “Whatever.” He settles on, and _god_ , he sounds like Newton. He sits down beside her, groaning because she’s sat on the floor and he’s no longer built to do so, but there’s little else to do. There’s no strategic retreat to be made… all he can do is wait. He may as well wait here. Amara observes, amused but not mocking.

“Can I ask you a question, Doc?” she asks into the silence. She’s watching Newt through the glass again; he’s humming _Highway to Hell_ and if Hermann never hears it again it will be too soon. Hermann nods, mostly because he has no quip for it that won’t make him sound like Newt again, and it’s not the moment for his permanent exasperation. “How was your signature still there ten years later?” she asks it so casually, and seems to miss how Hermann freezes beside her. “I get it if it’s not something you want to talk about, but no one’s asking what feels like a really obvious question.”

“Obvious?” he asks, still collecting himself.

“No ghost drift lasts that long. It might’ve in the Kaidonovskys, and there’s lingering synchronicity in all surviving pairs…” she muses, “but a definite presence? If the world weren’t fucked I’d call that soulmate territory.” She tells him, somehow both matter-of-fact and incredibly juvenile, and at that Hermann has to huff a laugh.

“We didn’t have a jaeger to mediate our neural feedback.” Hermann tells her, thinking it through aloud – what can she judge him with, really? – “in some ways the jaeger isn’t just what allows the pilots to link together, but also what keeps them separate.”

“And you didn’t have that barrier.” She finishes the thought for him.

“Exactly.”

“But that means you’re not completely you?” she’s frowning, trying to get her head around that concept, and Hermann has no idea how to explain it to her; he doesn’t really understand it himself.

“I never drank coffee before I drifted with Newton.” He says, “and I was meticulously organised.” Amara raises that damn eyebrow again. “You’ve seen the proof a part of me lingers in him, Miss Namani. That’s the proof that part of him lingers in me.” He swallows and admits; “it’s harder to differentiate some days than others.”

“So it’s not like ghost drifting all the time? It’s not a connection… more a remnant.” She offers. Hermann considers that, considers his nightmares, and considers how much Amara really needs to know regardless of how much she wants to know.

“A remnant,” Hermann agrees, and the lie is untraceable to her. “One that will grow, if this works.”

“It will.” Amara smiles at him, sounding so sure of herself. “If I can build and pilot Scrapper with no formal training, then you can save your boyfriend.”

Hermann’s spluttering is interrupted by a knock at the door, and the two of them turn.

Liwen Shao looks like she’s been treated well since the Drone incident. Her company had partially taken the fall for the incident, but with an agreement in place to work more closely with the PPDC, Liwen hasn’t lost all that she worked for. She’s clearly taking the time to rebuild her image as well as her work. They’re looking at merging K-Science with her research department, something that will greatly improve all they can achieve, but Hermann thinks he’d rather take a holiday. At least at first.

“Ms Shao,” Hermann greets her, and she smiles. “forgive me if I don’t stand.”

“Not at all, Dr Gottleib. Amara.” She nods and Amara – well, Amara blushes and waves awkwardly, and the part of Hermann that’s more Newt than not stores it away for later. Amara scrambles to her feet then, as if on a delay, and helps Hermann up; it’s decidedly ungraceful, but Hermann finds himself uncaring.

Hermann offers a hand for Liwen to shake before he remembers, but she takes his hand in hers, a more familiar hold, and squeezes as she smiles. It turns a little sad as she says, “I understand you’ve had a rough week, doctor.”

_Rough would be fun,_ a voice that is decidedly not Hermann supplies, and the last of the joke is lost to a mental version of his own glare. “That’s certainly the verdict.” Hermann agrees. Liwen lets go, and turns to face the window.

“We came up with a way to improve your progress.” Liwen tells him, and her lips quirk in half a smile. “A crowbar.”

Hermann is, for a moment, incredibly confused, but then it dawns on him; “Alice.”

“It became active again a few days ago, when you drifted with Dr Geiszler,” Liwen sounds disgusted. “The decision was made to destroy it. With prejudice.” And then she just sounds smug.

“Will that severe the Precursors influence in Dr Geiszler’s mind from the rest of the hive?” Amara asks, hopeful and curious in equal measure. Liwen raises one perfect eyebrow at her, but Amara doesn’t shy away when there’s science concerned.

“All evidence suggests it.” Liwen tells her, amused, and then she turns to Hermann. “The drones’ breach finally settled entirely. The timing is... too good to be chance.”

“It is indeed...” Hermann agrees. “I should- drift immediately. The Precursors will become desperate to win out, now.” Hermann sighs heavily – _once more unto the breach, dear friend,_ he provides and _hear hear my dude_ echoes back – and then straightens. “Will you two assist me? I cannot afford to waste any time.”

Amara is nodding before he’s finished asking, and when he has, Liwen doesn’t hesitate to agree.

 

 

“Back again so soon?” Hermann’s voice is scathing, and he winces at his own venom.

This memory is only nine years old.

“Hermann-” Newton begins, pleading. He’s still in the skinny jeans he’d always favoured, but he’s wearing contacts. Hermann misses the blocky frames. “I made the wrong choice. I know I did, but it could be the _right_ one if you-”

“If I _what_ , Newton?” Hermann can see the tension in Newt’s shoulders now in a way he never did. “I’m not leaving the PPDC just so you can feel better about doing so, and-” god, he’d actually raised his voice to cut Newt off even though he’d know Newt hated being yelled at by then, “I’m _perfectly_ happy with K-Science. I’m not in this for the money, Dr Geiszler.”

“Shao Industries has the better resources, better space, better contacts,” _me_ , Hermann can hear it now. This was- this was Newt beginning to understand the extent of his fuck-up and _asking for help_. Hermann should have known.

Should have known the panic filling their ever-lingering ghost drift hadn’t been just his.

_You gave him up to us so easily_.

Their collective mindscape goes blank under the voices of the precursors, the memory shattered before it can finish its playthrough. Hermann closes his eyes against it, the overwhelming inky blue, and instead chases the r.a.b.i.t.

_This is Marshal Hercules Hansen._

_The Breach is sealed._

_Stop the clock!_

Conjuring the memory isn’t difficult. The elation is as infectious as it always was, the cheering and the laughing, the weight taken off the LOCCENT staff, off the Shatterdome itself. Tendo stepping aside to send the choppers for Mako and Raleigh, and Newt-

Hermann opens his eyes again, and it’s not the moment where Newt had thrown his arm around Hermann’s neck, but the one several hours later when Mako’s just stepped back from crushing them in a hug, and Newt’s decided to be the brave one and slip his fingers between Hermann’s. They’re still clutching back at Mako, who’s still got Raleigh hovering at her shoulder. No one has noticed they’re holding hands – or maybe it just seems normal to them. There’s people abound celebrating, but the memory closes down on the four of them, and though the conversation continues like it had, Hermann’s only got eyes for Newt.

His hand is warm in Hermann’s, and when Hermann gently squeezes back, a _yeah okay I could get used to this,_ Newt looks at him out of sync with the memory.

“You came back.” It’s not quite a question, so Hermann doesn’t answer. “What do we do now?” Memory-Mako is asking the same thing. Hermann’s previous answer of _we pick up and we carry on,_ no longer feels right.

“We try again.” He says, and Newt’s eyes go wide.

“It’s- it’s not too late?” he asks, and Hermann longs to tell him it’s not, but the memory fractures into the drones and their havoc, wrecked upon- _Hong Kong?_  

It’s a feeble, feeble last-ditch attempt, Hermann thinks, even as the memory is blown apart around them, and Hermann is trapped in Sydney’s rubble for a moment.

_“You’re not strong enough!”_ the voices boom, but the only thing that quakes is their panic.

“Oh, get _fucked_ twelve eyes,” Hermann groans, forcing himself to remember that it’s just _nerve damage_ , something he’s worked through every day since and something he can work through now. “Fuck off back to the inconsequential particles you came from and leave Newton Geiszler the hell alone.”

“ _You cannot thwart u-”_

“You’ve already been thwarted. Now you’re just being annoying.” Hermann huffs, and stands despite the pain ricocheting up his leg. The rubble is just a figment of a memory, and Hermann pushes through it, watching it fade as he makes his way to Newt.

“ _We are-”_

“I’m just not listening,” Hermann mutters, and just like that, the Precursors are silenced, as if behind the glass wall of a TV and placed on mute. “Newton? Newton, love, you’ve got to get up.” Hermann’s leaning heavily on a wall that shouldn’t be standing. He thinks it belongs to their old lab. The rubble Newt’s sprawled on fades out.

“Hermann?” He asks shakily, sitting up with a groan. He’s wearing his old glasses, cracked as they are.

“That would be me. Can you stand?” He asks gently, holding out a hand even though it won’t be much help. Newt’s hand slips into his anyway, warm, more calloused than Hermann was expecting.

“I think so.”

Newt pushes himself up – it’s made more awkward by how he does it without tugging Hermann at _all_ but refuses to let go, but he manages it – and steps straight into Hermann’s space. They’ve hardly been this close in years, and the drift is quiet with the two of them. Newt twists his grip to twine their fingers together, and Hermann’s feeling oddly brave as he brings his free hand up to pull Newt in. He intends it to be a hug, he really does, but it’s all too easy to-

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter goes to [burngormanlesbian](https://burngormanlesbian.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, who is an absolute delight and I love their blog something shocking.

 

_Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all._

 

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams

 

 

Hermann comes to on a hospital bed. The process is sluggish, thinking as if his thoughts had to wade through treacle to get to the forefront; his head is heavy, like there’s too much in it. It’s not dissimilar to how he used to wake up on exam mornings, having crammed so _much_ into his mind the night before, and it’s a wonderful feeling. His mind is full of wonderful things, new things, things that won’t ever leave him or hurt him or-

His head is incredibly full, wonderfully busy, and it’s the implication of that, sinking in too slowly, that has him pushing himself up.

Asleep, unchained, and curled towards Hermann on the other bed with his hand outstretched, is Newton. Hermann swallows hard, hands shaking as he reaches for where someone has delicately put his glasses on the side table. It’s not choking back a sob – because this, this is nothing like the sadness he’s been choking on – but it’s blinking back tears and biting back a grin before giving in and letting it happen. Glasses slipped on it’s easy to see him, both easier and harder than it has ever been to just _look._

Newt is oh so pale, the bags under his eyes are so dark Hermann has a fleeting worry they’re permanent, and the bruises that blossom amongst his tattoos where the shackles were make Hermann ache – but he's undeniably Newt, snoring softly and reaching out. Hermann swings his legs off the edge of the bed and drinks him in. The harshness that the precursors held him with is gone; give him a few weeks to make Newt eat properly and it’ll be like he never lost the softness.

Somehow, he looks peaceful despite the battery he’s suffered.

Hermann is dithering over whether or not it would cross a boundary just to _join_ him – are there boundaries anymore? Where do they lay? – when the door to their room opens silently, Liwen on the threshold. She smiles to see him awake.

“I was bringing this,” she tells him softly – she is so much softer than she first appeared, and Hermann will feel honoured to have been allowed to see it through her proud composure later – and holds up a file that she sets on the table by the door. “He's clear, though you’re possibly already aware of the… ghost drift, that remains between you. There's no trace of the Precursors left, though.”

If Hermann hadn’t been sat down he would have fallen down. “Thank you, Liwen. For everything.” He tells her, as sincere as he knows how to be, and she suddenly looks more like a normal person than he’d ever seen, even when she’d piloted Scrapper in all that grease. Her smile is almost vulnerable, and she says nothing, simply nods to him, spares Newton a glance, and makes to leave. She hesitates in the doorway, and looks back over her shoulder.

“You should know Dr Gottleib, that Shao Industries’ research and the PPDC’s K-Science departments are merging. They decided this morning.” She pauses. “We would be honoured to have you both with us. I will understand – we all will – if the two of you would rather take a break from kaiju studies, but there will always be a place for you. I will make sure of it.” Hermann blinks, hard, shocked by how much she cares. He opens his mouth to reply, but Liwen waves him off – and he’s glad, because there’s no way to get words out of his mouth through the shock. It is something that would need discussion, a lot of it, but.

It’s a discussion they’ll get to have.

The door closes behind her, and Hermann turns back to Newt. There’s tiredness to every atom of him, the usually restless sleeper entirely still except for where his fingers twitch towards Hermann. His tattoos are still bright, but they no longer seem ridiculous in the way Hermann had once thought. There’s something to be said for ownership of one’s body, and Hermann might just be starting to understand it.

He gives up on fighting the urge to limp over to Newt's other side where there’s space – the distance isn’t worth his cane, the risk of waking Newt – and though at first he just sits on the edge, Newt rolls in his sleep like he’s _drawn in_ and Hermann feels much the same; how can he not with the history and the drift between them? He’s always felt like that, drawn like a moth to a flame, and lying down beside Newt, despite the last two months, ten years, despite everything and nothing, despite the hospital bed and the bone-deep ache they’ll both be feeling for months; Hermann is right where he’s meant to be.

The hospital bed is not built for two grown men, not even of their less than average statures, but it matters little. Hermann intends to keep to the edge, but Newt is still reaching out for him, grasping when he finds him, and they fit on the bed comfortably away from the edge because they end up so close that they’re almost one. Newt has buried himself unconsciously in the crook of Hermann's neck, against the collar of his shirt, hands grasping at the cardigan he’s still wearing, and Hermann turns into the somewhat desperate clutch. There’s no weight on his bad leg, the right one, even when they end up tangled, and though he leans on one arm, the other hand rests on Newt's waist. Hermann drifts in and out of awareness, happy to just doze off next to the love of his life, newly returned.

 

“Ngh, my head-” Newt groans softly; then stills on Hermann’s chest as he begins to realise and remember the situation. Hermann, not having time for this bullshit, simply takes one hand off the book Jake had brought him with food some hours ago, and threads it into Newt's haywire hair, rubbing gently like it might help. “Uh.” He mumbles intelligently, pushing himself up to look at Hermann. Hermann, for all he wants to pretend this is normal, that everything can just go back to how it once was (with extra kissing, preferably), fucks that up at the first hurdle when he catches Newt's gaze and nearly sobs; everything that was missing in those green eyes is there again.

Disbelief is something he saw on Newt a lot over the years, though usually twinned with incredulity and not wonder, but it’s still so damn familiar that Hermann’s heart clenches. He’s one hundred percent him, every bit of the letters he’d fallen in love with twenty years ago, every bit the infuriating man he’d tried to hate; every bit the crazy, talented genius that Hermann had thought was never going to love him back. His eyes are incredibly green, a spark behind them that Hermann has sorely missed from his day to day life, and his smile, as it blooms on his face, is soft.

“You- you came in after me.” Newt’s tone echoes _you would do that for me,_ and Hermann smiles as he reaches across to pick up the blocky-framed glasses someone brought for Newt, who takes them without looking, holding them loosely in his hand.

“I did.”

“You- _dude_ , you told the Precursors to get fucked!”

“I did.”

“W-why? I’m not worth all that Hermann.”

“You are to me.” He says simply, softly, taking the glasses back from where Newt has already forgotten he’s holding them, and gently puts them on his face. Silence stretches between them, and Newt won’t stop grinning at him; though it’s evident he doesn’t realise exactly what Hermann is trying to tell him. “Newton,” he begins, and there’s so much he could say. _As you seemed to be fighting for me, I rather thought I should return the favour,_ is the line that he’s been thinking, but what he says is; “there is no risk you aren't worth to me.” He swallows, even as Newt freezes in the midst of pushing himself up further, gaze instantly snapping to meet his, and continues, “After everything, I’d rather not lose you again.”

Newt takes a moment to sit up and away, as if he needs that space to think, and somehow his usual and sorely missed manic energy radiates off him even as he keeps very still. The drift between them thrums with _potential,_ and Hermann relaxes easily. Newt seems to rock forward again – still immeasurably tired, and keeping himself at a distance in such a small space is more effort than its worth. He ends up holding himself up with one arm on the edge of their shared pillow, face barely inches from Hermann’s own. If he wasn’t so tired of denying himself of feeling this, Hermann would look away. Newt licks his lips. “That sounded a lot like a- a confession, Herm.”

 _That’s because it was, you fool,_ he can’t help but think, and Newt’s eyes go wide. Hermann remembers the renewed detail of the ghost drift in that moment, and the moment to tell Newt he loves him is hot on the heels of that realisation, but it gets rudely interrupted by- oh. Oh.

Newt kisses with the same kind of manic energy with which he moved around the lab and chapped lips. Hermann’s on the receiving end of all of Newt’s intense, fast-paced yet singular focus, and he’s caught up in it so easily now that he lets himself. Hermann can’t help but kiss back tentatively – he’s never known what to do with passion, only ever had it for mathematics and astrophysics and one Doctor Newton Geiszler – and he knows his hands are shaking as he brings them up to cup Newt’s face.

_I love you._

_Me too, me too me too me too **me too**. _ “So _damn_ much,” Newton continues the thought aloud, pulling back to breathe, harsh against Hermann’s lips. “For years and,” _years,_ the drift takes over when Hermann has breathed all he needs to and drawn him back in. If Newton’s warm and incessant rambling carries on Hermann _will_ cry, and he’s done quite enough of that lately, thank you.

 _Since I got your first letter,_ traitorously slips out into the drift, but at that Newt only kisses him harder, presses closer. The drift goes awash in a soft warm brown, like hair and tea and blankets and wood, remnants of their shared space in the Hong Kong Shatterdome.

Hermann loves the idea that their drift, as they make it, isn’t blue. He’s had enough blue for a lifetime.

 

\---

 

They’re discharged quietly in the later hours of evening, when the Shatterdome has already retreated back into itself and the corridors are awake but left to themselves. Newt seems unbothered, despite the tattered clothes he’s not yet had opportunity to replace; but his hand is tight in Hermann’s as Hermann leads them through the corridors.

Hermann’s space is... cluttered, to him, but that’s no longer something that irritates him. Neat, but only just, and Hermann knows it’s a far cry from his pencils all lined up in a row, notes organised meticulously by topic and cross-referenced by date. He doesn’t know what he wants to offer first – a shower or a cup of coffee – but Newt’s almost wondrous gaze is interrupted by a yawn.

“You- ah, you’re free to change into whatever you like,” he gestures towards his wardrobe but also the boxes stacked beside it, just two. “We can- just go straight to bed.” It’s an offer, one that’s harder to say aloud than it should be, but it’s worth it for Newt’s bright smile.

Hermann is quite content to sleep in a shirt and his boxers, but he does own sleep pants, and it’s these that Newton goes looking for. His lack of shame surprises Hermann, in the context of the last few years, but then Hermann’s distracted because the sleep pants pool around Newton’s feet, and he has found the thickest, softest cardigan that Hermann owns and thrown it on shirtless, bundling into it, flashes of his colourful skin beneath the wool.

He looks unfairly good.

Hermann doesn’t know if it’s just because it’s _Newt_ – a likely hypothesis, Hermann cannot discount his own bias on the matter – or if it’s because it’s Newt _in his clothing_ , but it’s enough to make him stare for a little too long. Newt has asked him something but Hermann didn’t catch it, and he can’t decide what it was before Newt’s turned back to see why Hermann isn’t answering.

 _Smug always looked good on you_ , Hermann thinks, and apparently it’s loud enough that the drift – and Newt – catches it. Newt has never blushed in front of Hermann before now, but he loves it already. It creeps up his cheeks, rosy soft, and Hermann grins. “What did you say?” he asks like Newton’s thoughts aren’t a white noise of _does not compute_.

“I-” he swallows, clicks his tongue for a moment and regathers his words where he can use them. “Which side-?”

“You can have the right side.” He says, because he’ll always sleep on his back or his left, with his leg as it is, and _Have...?_ comes along, questioning, and Hermann just nods. He gets himself a glass of water like he always does, to sit beside his bed, and he gets Newt one too, handing it off with a deliberate yet delicate brush of fingers. He sets his book with his glasses beside the lamp, and watches as Newt recognises his own working notebook that Hermann set beside the other – it hadn’t felt right to keep it on his own side. Newt places the glass down and traces his fingers over the cover.

“Did you look?” he asks, nervous.

“Your handwriting is appalling, I couldn’t read a word.” Hermann tells him, slipping under the covers. “A few pages, and only the doodles. It served a purpose.” Newt looks up then.

“A- oh. You had it when-” he doesn’t finish the sentence.

He hesitates, but climbs in beside Hermann. The bed sinks down, and for all the awkwardness – because really this isn’t how this was meant to happen for the first time – it’s still comfortable. Hermann switches off his lamp and settles down, and Newton mirrors him. The dipped mattress makes it easy to roll and face one another. Newton – who, Hermann knows from the number of times he used to fall off the shitty couch they had in their lab in Hong Kong, sleeps like a starfish – is curled against himself, like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible.

“Newton,” Hermann whispers into the dark, reaching out like his hand isn’t shaking a little to settle over where Newt’s are fisted against his chest. “Come _here_.”

For a moment, there’s only stillness.

Newt shifts slowly, first unclenching his hands to tangle his fingers in Hermann’s, his foot coming to rest against Hermann’s shin, then more, invading Hermann’s space easily to sling one arm around his waist and tangle their legs together – consciously, Newt keeps Hermann’s bad leg on top, rested carefully on the mess of limbs beneath.

Once, there would’ve been jokes and quips to accompany the nervousness – or maybe it would’ve just happened too fast for nervousness to get a say – but now it’s a moment of peace between them. _Like this?_ asks the gentle squeeze Newt gives Hermann’s hip, and _exactly so_ is the response the kiss Hermann leans in to press to his nose gives. It makes Newt scrunch his nose up, whine “Herm _, dude_ -”, but it also makes the last of the tension drain out of him, at least for now, the crest of the wave broken and ending in a quiet sob.

Even closer and impossibly warm, Newt cries, his face buried in the crux of Hermann’s neck, forehead resting carefully against the pulse point.  Hermann presses kiss after kiss to Newt’s messy hair, as the man comes apart with sadness and longing, apology pouring out of him as he clutches Hermann closer and closer.

“It’s alright, Newton, I promise you it’s alright.” Hermann whispers, and holds Newt closer, hands coming up to rest between his shoulders and at the nape of his neck, cradling him like he’s something precious because he _is_. “Oh Newton,” he says sadly, and he wants to apologise, maybe crack himself, but instead he says “love, I’ve got you.” When Newt shakes less in his arms he finally thinks to address what was scrawled on the backs of the letters Newt had tried in vain to answer. “I love you,” he says, and it feels like everything and nothing all at once. “I love you,” he says again, because he can, and it feels like being _free_.

Newt takes some minutes to look up, and when he does it’s easy for Hermann to see the disbelief lingering where it shouldn’t. Newt’s going to ask but that might break him, so Hermann kisses him – it’s going to be an effective tactic at shutting him up, in the future – and Newt sinks into it, kissing softly and languidly until there’s no trace of salt. Hermann pulls back, resting his forehead against Newt’s, who smiles shakily, like the foundations of it are there but he doesn’t know if the walls are going to hold, and doesn’t close his eyes. “Love you too, Herm,” he whispers eventually – oh the sinner at the altar, to the preacher at the pulpit. Neither of them believed in God, but perhaps, they’ve always believed in each other.

 

Half an hour later, of sleepy half-smiles and chaste kisses, and saying _it_ because it can now be said; Newt disturbs the little bubble of calm. Hermann doesn’t know why beyond because he’s _Newt,_ and Hermann wouldn’t love him if he wasn’t exactly as he is.

“Shit!” Newt suddenly exclaims and sits up, dislodging himself from Hermann and the bed, ending up immediately on the floor. “I had a- a box, a box in the apartment, I need it!” He scrambles for his glasses and then to his feet.

“Do you really need it _now_ , Newton?” Hermann grumbles, already missing the warmth, but he puts on the lamp so that Newt can see better.

“Yes!” Newt insists, a sense of urgency flooding the drift between them, a sense of _if I don’t now I won’t_. He’s about to ask what happened to the personal affects in his apartment that won’t have been confiscated, but then he sees them, stacked neatly into the corner of Hermann’s room. _Only because they hadn’t known whether to allocate one to Newt, yet_ , Hermann has already had to justify to people, but his nerves are drowned out by contentment, so he doesn’t fret about it.

Newton goes straight for the box he’s looking for, and drags it out, places it between himself and Hermann on the floor. It’s- it’s a gorgeous box. Ornately carved wood, though without searching to find his glasses on the bedside table he can’t tell what the designs are; but he can see the care in it, and when Newt twists for the right combination, popping the lock open and removing the lid with reverent hands, Hermann can see that it’s packed to the brim.

Hermann watches, sitting up and dragging the blankets over his shoulders, as Newt rifles through the box’s contents, desperately searching for something, muttering _please be here please be here please don’t have made me throw it please be here_ as he searches. “Newt?” Hermann asks softly, but Newt simply continued to search, stacking letter over letter over papers over sketchbooks. “What are you looking for, love?” he asks, and his tone errs somewhere along the border of amusement. His voice feels sleep-heavy, and he’s curious, not quite yet worried, not for the moment.

“A thing.” Newt says, like that’s in anyway helpful, and Hermann huffs. Newt looks up to shoot him a grin, and- “a-ha!” he looks back down, pulling out a tiny tiny box. Hermann has one hysterical second to think _he was going to propose to Alice_ before he remembers that Alice was never a real person. Newt sets the box to one side, and with a care that seems like the kind you’d use with a small child, or a lost love – something precious – he places everything else back into the box and shuts it up. “My safe box,” Newt begins to explain, as he scrambles gracelessly back up. “Hiding everything I didn’t want to lose, more or less.” He shrugs a shoulder, bouncing on the balls of his feet for a moment before holding out the box to him. “That was- this was meant for you. Still is, if you’d like it.”

Hermann takes the box after a moment, wondering what on earth could be in it that Newt could’ve had for at least the last ten years and never found a way to give him. He hesitates to open it, and before he does shuffles to one side of the bed – Newt takes the cue for what it is and sits next to him, and after a moment of sitting so still it’s unnatural for _anyone_ , let alone Newt, he sags and leans himself against Hermann, a burning warmth against his side. Hermann opens the box, half-expecting chalk, and finds himself staring.

And staring.

And staring.

“It’s a ring.” He says, struck-dumb for perhaps the first time in all his years. He takes it gently from the velvet – it’s a plain silver band, but he suspects the metal is something unusual, and as the light glances off it he realises there’s an engraving inside it.

“It’s a ring,” Newt agrees as Hermann reads O _wn the future with me?_ where it’s engraved in Newt’s own scruffy hand, and Hermann can’t comprehend- “we were- we were almost a- thing, and after- after it all I knew, I knew I was never going to find anyone else I wanted this with. Should’ve known it twenty years ago-“ Newt swallows, hard. He’s staring down at the ring in Hermann’s hands, and nervous is so strange on him that Hermann wants to preserve the moment. Bottle it up into a specimen jar to sit on the mantelpiece of his mind, safe and precious. Instead he turns, and presses a lingering kiss to the side of Newt’s head.

Slipping on the ring is far too easy, and Hermann doesn’t give a damn; he deserves something easy. He stares down at it on his finger a moment – even when he’d been in relationships before, had wondered if this was it, he’d never thought to imagine what a ring might look like there. He’d never got to the moment of giving thought to whether he’d want a thick band or a thin band, to whether he’d prefer silver or gold – but he can’t help but think that if he had, the ring would look like this. He knows without having to consider that Newt needs one with a band of colour in it. Newt would like that.

“It’s lovely, Newton.” Hermann tells him because he realises he’s yet to say _anything._ Newt twists to face him, sitting more firmly on the bed, and there’s a grin starting to curve his lips.

“That’s- is that a yes-?” Newt cuts himself off at Hermann's raised eyebrows, and instead of the _okay yes that’s a yes_ that Hermann expects to follow he simply smiles, and leans in to kiss him. It’s gentle, soft, tentative, and falling back onto the bed to curl around each other and sleep is natural.

Automatic.

Easy.

_If the world weren’t fucked, I’d call that soulmate territory._

Meant to be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here's a new thing; for those of you without tumblr, I now have an email I'm willing to make public, for conversation and prompts!! thecitylightshow@hotmail.com - I am not fast, and I am forgetful; but I'm always willing to try. If you're not impatient, and are a little forgiving, I am 100% happy to take a prompt! 
> 
> As this stands, let's call this the end of the first act. This is by no means finished, but I could end the fic here. Technically. I'm not going to, I have too much planned - but from here on out I'm writing as I go, meaning there will be longer waits between chapters.

**Author's Note:**

> The song that inspired this "I Wanna Get Better" by the Bleachers, where the line _I didn't know I was lonely til I saw your face_ makes me think of Hermann, and _I didn't know I was broken til I wanted to change_ makes me think of Uprising!Newt... 
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [thecitylightshow](http://thecitylightshow.tumblr.com/) (which is a lot of Marvel, but I'm growing my Pacific Rim obsession) so please please please come chat to me about all these nerds!!


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